🔴 Subscribe to our news website today and unlock exclusive strategic and tactical insights: https://www.rfunews.com/pricing
Today there are a lot of important updates from the Kursk direction.
Here, the Ukrainian forces have launched a surprise counteroffensive in the Kursk direction, aiming to exploit gaps in the overstretched Russian and North Korean defenses. With superior forces and tactical terrain advantages on their side, the Ukrainians have launched a new offensive toward key positions that could redefine control in the region.
The goal of the Ukrainian offensive in the area is to reach Bolshoe Soldatskoye and diminish the Russian tactical gains achieved during the last three waves of their counteroffensives. Such a move could effectively collapse the Russian lines and force them to a defensive posture, completely throwing off the Russian plans for pushing Ukrainians out of Kursk.
By widening their bridgehead, the Ukrainians can cancel out all Russian counteroffensive efforts and effectively retake the initiative for the first time since August. During the previous Russian counteroffensive efforts from September until now, the Russian and North Korean forces in Kursk sustained losses so heavy that they could no longer launch attacks toward the Ukrainian positions, indicated by the recent Russian redeployment of additional forces from their offensives in Eastern Ukraine to Kursk. Furthermore, the largest concentration of Russian and North Korean forces was in the western part of the salient, around Novoivanovka. This situation exposed gaps in the Russian and North Korean lines, which created an opportunity for a Ukrainian counterattack to disrupt their combined efforts.
By launching a rapid counterattack now, the Ukrainian forces could effectively take advantage of gaps in Russian lines, before the Russian reinforcements could arrive and take up positions. Ukrainians understood that the lower frontline activity northeast of Sudzha meant that the Russian garrison here was likely stretched thin, leading to the settlement of Berdin being the weakest link in the Russian line, and the focuspoint for the Ukrainian spearhead.
The main tactical advantage of the Ukrainians is the element of surprise combined with numerical superiority in this section of the front. As Ukrainians maintained an extremely favorable casualty ratio to the past Russian and North Korean human wave offensives, Ukrainian forces had room to prepare several battalions of their reserve units to exploit this gap for a breakthrough. The Ukrainian attack was also made possible by the proximity of their units to Sudzha, their main supply hub, which significantly increased the strength of their nearby logistics and accelerated their offensive.
If we look at the topographic map, we can also see that all villages near the main highway are in the lowlands, while the highway is at a higher elevation. This means that there are no kill zones for Russians to easily eliminate the Ukrainian assault in, as Russians have to fire up at the convoy, while Ukrainians can rain down fire on them as they drive past. On top of that, Ukrainians deployed powerful electronic warfare systems in the area to prevent any Russian drones from reaching the column.
However, Russians had preemptively mined the highway to prevent such an exact Ukrainian surprise assault. Unfortunately for Russians, the ground had frozen and hardened from freezing December temperatures, combined with there being little combat here to unearth the frozen ground.
Recently released footage shows that this allowed Ukrainians to move across the fields along the highway, circumventing the Russian mines, as mine-clearing vehicles led the convoy just in case. Additional footage shows the Ukrainian convoy firing on Russian positions as they drove past, eliminating the threat of coming under a Russian crossfire. Lastly, footage from Russian drone operators shows them attempting to strike the Ukrainian convoy, but the connection immediately being disrupted by Ukrainian electronic warfare.
Overall, Russians had completely exhausted their offensive capabilities in Kursk, exposing vulnerable weak points in their defenses, which Ukrainians masterfully exploited. As a result of the Ukrainian surprise assault and tactical superiority, preliminary information indicates that Ukrainians have overwhelmed the Russian skeleton force guarding Berdin, and have taken full control of the settlement and the surrounding area. If Ukrainians can successfully consolidate their control here, they will create a strong launching pad for a follow-up attack toward Bolshoe Soldatskoye, the key Russian deployment point and logistics hub for all Russian operations east of Sudzha.
